She’s a jewel: RHS senior Audrey Erdahl creates adornments aplenty

Audrey Erdahl displayed a necklace she designed and made. (Photo by Bruce Strand)

by Bruce Strand, Arts editor

Rogers senior Audrey Erdahl has quietly devoted herself to art, especially two- and three-dimenisional art, during her high school days, with impressive results.

The necklace piece depicting a bird and a leaf she was wearing when the Star News visited her at Susan Sebghati’s class recently is part of a large collection she has produced.

Jewelry by Audrey

“Her specialty is jewelry,” said Sebghati, “but she does stone sculpture, collage, printmaking, almost everything. She is quite serious about art and wants to continue in some arts-related field or education.”

Erdahl won the Mississippi 8 Conference art festival’s jewelry prize her junior year for earrings, necklace and ring with pearls and swirls.

“I took a jewelry class in ninth grade and just kept doing it,” said Erdahl, who peruses the web site esty.com to check on what fellow jewelers are up to, and get ideas.

She is constantly designing new items and bringing them to life with her long, graceful fingers, a process that involves drawing, cutting, drilling, filing, sanding, buffing, and soldering the metal and stones.

Jewelry by Audrey

“Audrey’s work is very intricate,” said Sebhati. “She is a hard worker and she spends a lot of time on designs, because she is a perfectionist in everything.”

Collage by Audrey

Erdahl was working on a collage of a lion’s head during our visit, cutting strips of light brown from a magazine photo and glueing them unto the surface to depict long grass.

“I’m not in the 2D class, but I’m doing this as an Art Club project,” said Erdahl.

RHS has an Art Club for kids to work on their own after school, with advice from Sebghati when needed. Erdahl is the club’s president.

She is spending her senior year taking PSEO at Anoka-Ramsey, with just one art class (3D) first hour at Rogers plus the independent study after school.

Greenstone sculpture by Audrey

Unlike most young art devotees, Erdahl doesn’t do much drawing or painting, favoring the 2D and 3D realm. She recently completed a small greenstone sculpture of an elephant.

Erdahl plams to keep creating art throughout life and share her passion as an art teacher or elementary teacher.